Dual Speed Work Session

Although I don't have a thoroughly planned triathlon program in place I felt it was time to start writing about what I am doing for training.  From October through December I wasn't training.  yes I was running, some swimming, very little cycling and plenty of weight training but no specific purpose.  It was nice to have some unstructured workouts for awhile but now I'm ready to take action so I have a great tri season this year.  My plan is to focus on Olympic distance races, 4-6 throughout the season, and throw in some road races, 10k to half marathon distance.

Yesterday, Sunday, was my long run for the week and really today should be an easy day but was feeling up for this, and I had the time bloked off in the AM so I went for it.  I woke up, had 4oz of Cleanse for Life and filled my water bottle up with Want More Energy and went to the gm in my building.  My upperbody workout is focusing on upperbody stabilization work and I did a circuit of 7 exercises and repeated 3 times.  Hamstrings feel a little tight today, but otherwise everything is good.

Immediately following I set up my indoor trainer in my office.  I've been riding on my terrace but today it feels like below 0 here on the waterfront.  Heat is off in the office and temp is at 54 so that is manageable.  My bike workouts have consisted of alternating weeks of speed and force for 1 day of the week and another day as either recovery endurance or muscular endurance.  Today it is Speed, and i'm using workout SS4 from my book.  Easy warm up spinning 95 plus rpm followed by 6x3 min at 95rpm in aero position and 3 min rest in climbing position in z1-2 at least 95rpm.  I have a pretty good play list going here and my cadence really does coincide with the music.  Hardest part of the workout was keeping the cadence up and I was supposed to work in HR Z3 but for most part was at top of Z2.  I was holding myself back a little but also know i'm running out of glycogen stores which is why i have not eaten.  Goal here is also to burn some fat!  Total workout time was 51 minutes and I did not do a proper cool down because i'm going into a run after this.

I really don't like treadmill workouts but at least intervals keep me more engaged than steady state or tempo workouts.  About 20 min after the bike ride i was on the treadmill in my gym.  I had hoped to get to the track, but it really is bitter out.  I have more water with want more energy and I had a honey stinger gell (about 120 calories) 10 min before the run.  Warmed up 10 minutes really easy jog and then prepared for this new interval workout.  Goal is 4x5 min at 20-30 sec slower than 5k pace.  I'm not going to worry so much about what pace i choose, but to choose a pace and stick to it.  I'm finding these treadmills are not calliberated properly anyway so will basically go by RPE and HR.  I was at 7:52 pcace for all 4 intervals and the 4th one was really hard.  For the rest interval I slowed to walk until HR got down to about 123 then jog for total of about 3 minutes before repeating again.  Feel the recovery period was sufficient.  Because it is so warm in here (at least to me it is) I feel my RPE was higher than it would have been with same workout outdoors.  My HR for the intervals ranged from Av of 174 to max of 195.  I feel if i was doing this on a track I could have worked faster.  Either way, next time I want to jog for the rest interval and try this outside.

The fact is I did really well on very little fuel over 3.5 hours.  This was my first brick (even though there was 20 minutes between) and my legs felt really fresh on the treadmill.  Will do this again, and will also try to do the run in the AM and bike in the PM and see how that goes.

My longest training day ever- 56 mile bike and 8 mile run

This will be my most difficult training day yet this year.  As i'm prepping for the half ironman i want to get in a 56 plus mile bike ride and follow that with a run of at least an hour and today is the day.  the weather is not looking so good, but the temperature isn't that bad. I'm using my Rever Reach water container for the first time and LOVED it.  It attaches to the back of my saddle and a tube runs along the cross bar and right between my aero bars so i can just lean forward and suck in a small amount of water any time i want.  I added a bottle of water with want more energy to one of my cages for purpose of electrolyte replacement.   I also brought gels and two different kinds of bars.

I set my goal to ride the first half at a slower pace and easier heart rate.  I'm going north on 9W for an hour or so and then turning back and maybe repeating.  Just watching the weather closely and don't want to end up 30 miles away and stuck in a downpour.  The first two hours my hr was 134bpm which is apporpriate for a long ride.  For the second half i set out for new territory.  Went south past the GWB and into palisades park which i heard is really hilly.  The road had very little traffic, but this old road could use some work.  I had to be very cautious on the down hills between the broken pavement, small tree branches and the shaded environment all lead to difficulty seeing the terrain well.  Really beautiful though and definately steeper hills than i have climbed in a long time.  Spent a bit of time out of the saddle.  I stopped for a gel at one point and asked two other cyclests where the road led.  They said about 3 miles further it would dump out onto 9w (i'm going north again now).  It was time to turn back, but i may start my next ride here next time. This second half i did not work as hard as i wanted to.  My HR was only 3bpm higher than the first half, but i was really getting tired of being on the bike and didn't feel like pushing any harder on these big hills

I completed my ride in 3 hours 45 minutes with very little stopping.  I covered 57 miles with an average speed of 15.2mph.

Back at the car i changed into running shorts and shoes.  Grabbed my handy water bottle and stopped into the bike shop to use the bathroom and inquire whether my bike rack replacement parts had come in.  Also locked up my bike outside the shop.  This system worked out well, although there were probaby 10 minutes between the bike and run.  Certainly not ideal.

The sun is out now and it's pretty humid so i had to decide between a fairly flat run in the sun or a hilly shaded run.  I chose shade and headed downhill to the palisades park again.   I always feel good getting off the bike so probably took it a little too fast in the beginning.  I had a gel right before the run and was feeling good.  My goal was to keep my HR between 156 and 162bpm, but that was not going to be possible with all these hills.  I was so glad to be off the bike and my mind was in a much better place now so i just went for it.  Ended up running  the 8 miles in 1hr 12min at a 9mm pace and HR ave of 165.

This is by far the longest training i'v done.  Almost 5 hours! and it really wasn't that taxing.  I was dying for a bagel with lox and cream cheese so went on the hunt before driving home which could take 45 minutes.  I didn't have any more food left and will remember to bring more bars and at least a piece of fruit with me next time.  This crappy town of Leonia has nothing open on Sundays.  Over just 1/4 mile there ws a deli, bagel shop and a bakery all closed.  So disapointed.  Drove home and bought one from a place around the corner from me and got all the satisfaction from that bagel and lox I was looking for.  Had a simple dinner of almond crusted roasted chicken over salad greens that night for dinner along with a cup of a mixed salad of beans and vegetables.  Followed by a cupcake.  No dout i can eat a cupcake after all that training today with no regrets!

Two a day the hard way

Yesterday felt like a wash.  I only did 30 min of wt training and some shoulder rehab because my left shoulder injury was telling me i needed to pay attention.  I wanted to put in a good bike ride in the afternoon but i ran over something on the way to the park and got two flats.  After walking to the bike shop the owner was kind enough to sell me two tubes with an IOU for 3 bucks.  Went home, looked at the situation and saw both tires had gashes in them.  I have no idea how small a hole needs to be to be fixed with a patch kit, but i decided to give it a try.  35 minutes later, inflated tires and all the rear tube exploded after filling it with air.  This sucks!  I walk back to the bike shop and am told i need new tires.  Fine.  They hook me up in the last 10 minutes they were open and i'm relieved because i need to bike to the park again tomorrow morning to meet a client for running training. Now it's Wednesday and i'm with my client in the park and i get yet another flat in the rear.  I ride slowly home, really hating my bike, see another client and head out for a run.  It's about 88 degrees out and a 15 mile long run was set for today and i'm more than happy to run instead of ride the bike.  I focused on breathing only through my nose and that helped me keep my heart rate on target and breath deeply..  I ran 7.5 miles counterclockwise in the park, stopped for a gel, and turned around.  Refilled water once also.  Focused on keeping HR in Z3 which meant keeping the three major hills easy.  Felt pretty good expecially considering the temperature and the fact that i have not run 15 miles since probably March.

Had a Isalean shake with lots of good stuff in it right after my shower.  Did some work, made calls and then changed for my bike ride.  Took the bike back to the shop and asked them to help me understand why i got this flat.  Bad tube they said.   Learned how to look at the tube once inflated again to see what may have caused the damage, so at least i learned something form this whole 24hour bike mess.  Rode to the park and did 4 loops.  Goal was to have my HR in Z4-5A for all the flat and up-hill portions .  Couldn't pull that off.  Worked on Average about 6bpm below that for each loop.  The loops were at about 12 minutes which is good, but i didn't want to push because of all the work from the run.  although this is not a brick, putting in 3 hrs and 45 minutes in training in one day was a bit of an effort.  Tomorrow i may have to ride again if there are thunderstorms as predicted, so also kept that in mind throughout this ride.

Overview is that i ran 15 miles in 2.5 hours at 9:30 pace and three hours later biked 18.5 miles in one hour 20 (25 of which was in street traffic) at 14.2mph.  That means i get to eat a small bagel with cream cheese as a post workout snack.  Love that!

Serious brick workout- bike to run

I have not done a brick workout since prior to the NYC traithlon.  I want to do two before my next race and like to separate them by a week.  Although i'm still bruised from my fall I'm going to have a go at it, and take it a little easier than if I was 100%. The bike goal was to ride the loop of Prospect Park at 132-152bpm.  Focusing on the higher end of that range but make sure i'm not working my legs so hard that the 1:15 min run to follow leaves me feeling wrecked.  The ride mostly up hill to the park is the 15 minute warm up and then I completed 5 loops.  Everything feels good, and no headache this time.  I worked the last two loops a bit harder and finished those under 12 minutes.  The bad part about these bricks is i never get to switch to the run off a hard effort on the bike because the 10 minute ride home is almost all down hill.  My only other reasonable option is to use the trainer. During the ride i consumed water with Want More Energy, no additional solid food.  I did have a IsaLean Shake about 30 minutes prior to the ride and added banana and flax meal for extra calories.

I took about 10 minutes to transition because i had to go to the bathroom.  Not ideal, but for today i'm not worried about it.  I ran to the promenade in the heights, then a couple laps around cadman plaza park, then over the brooklyn bridge and back.  I wanted to run 1:15 minutes with the intention of running straight home after coming off the bridge.  I didn't time it quite right and ended up cutting the run short by 10  minutes.

My HR goal was just below threshold at 163-169bpm, which would be about right for the 13.1 miles for the half ironman.  I jept this HR for the 7.3 miles but could not have maintained it for another 50 minutes needed for the half iron.  Still think that this is a good HR goal, just need less humidity which should be no problem in October.

Drank another shake when i got home.  I burned abotu 1000 calories and replaced maybe 400 of them with the IsaLean shake, coconut water, IsaFruits, and IsaCal.